When I was young I loved rummaging through my grandmother's bureau drawers, enchanted by her treasure trove of costume jewelry which she kept in a jumble of tiny boxes, each with its own story. Growing up in rural Connecticut, my passions were creating and curating my collections of objects found and acquired, and, as my mother used to say, "working with my hands". I progressed from hand-loomed pot holders to making bowls out of natural clay from a local streambed, to oil painting.

While working on the Navajo Reservation midway through college I fell in love with the wide-open landscape and moved West permanently. Soon I met my first silversmiths who made me want to get my hands on some silver and start making jewelry. I finished my BFA at the University of Colorado, and after ten years of making jewelry in Boulder, I settled in Nebraska, first on a farm and then in Lincoln. I now work with three assistants and my husband, Craig Roper, who manages the business end of the studio.

My design vocabulary derives from a wide range of sources which reflect my personal interests: the natural forms of rocks and seashells that I've collected since childhood, the lines and contours of landscapes where I've lived and traveled, the rich surfaces and intriguing shapes I find in weathered areas of the city. I'm interested in tribal and ancient jewelry that illustrates the human need to arrange found objects in new and meaningful relationships.

Recently I have been working on a series of designs inspired by the subtle, repetitive forms of the flora and wild grasses of the prairie. In miniaturizing a vast open landscape by creating these pieces, I am able to focus on the details of my surroundings which might otherwise be easily overlooked.

Working with the materials is the most exciting part of the process for me. Simply put, I like making things. In my one of a kind pieces, I exercise my love of color by incorporating a wide range of colored stones in endless combinations. My other body of work focuses on oxidized sterling combined with 18k and 22k gold. It's important that my work be both sculptural and wearable. Many of my designs are abstract, leaving the wearer open to create a personal, intuitive relationship with the piece.